Philipp Spalek (b. 1984, Germany) finished his masters in Middle Eastern Studies and Modern History in Germany in 2012. He had his first serious encounter with photography in 2010 when he worked as a press photographer for the Egyptian newspaper Al-Shorouk in Cairo. There he learned to speak fluent Arabic and feels addicted to the country since. His work has been published in Zenith, SpiegelOnline, Brand Eins & ZeitOnline. Over the last year he devoted his time to a project about the situation of Egyptian Copts after the revolution, which was awarded a first prize in the Reportage Category at Kolga Photo Festival in Georgia and won the Canon ProfiFoto Award in Germany. He is based in Berlin and Cairo

About the Photograph:

“I still remember that people used to move away from us in the Metro after we returned from taking pictures in the tanneries. Our smell really was obnoxious. But among those staring were people with nice leather jackets or leather handbags. They all seemed to have accusing looks on their faces. It was strange, but this made me want to go back even more and document the working conditions of those, who are not seen, but provide the luxury of our daily lives. When I first entered the tanner’s district, hidden behind Cairo’s old city walls, I was at the same time fascinated by the friendliness of the people and shocked by their working conditions. People were working in a knee deep soup of skin leftovers and smelling flesh. Young men were carrying skin on their head through dark cellars. Children were dragging skin through the burning heat. Transport was organized with horse carts. I felt like having arrived in a time bubble. Some of the tanneries haven’t modernized their technology for decades or even a century. Workers only rely on their muscle power and don’t earn more than a couple of pounds a day”

Share this:

Pauline Beugnies (b. 1982, Belgium) studied journalism at the Institut des Hautes Etudes des Communications Sociales in Brussels, where she took her first step in documentary photography. Her work has been published in Le Monde Magazine, Telerama, Liberation, L’Express, The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Soir, among others. She was awarded a grant from the Foundation de la Vocation (Belgium) in 2007 and was one of the recipients of the Open National Photography Prize in 2010. Her work has been shown at the Photography Museum in Charleroi, Belgium. She is currently based in Cairo.

About the Photograph:

“I took this photo of a young girl seen at Iftar, organised by the Muslim Brotherhood in Medinat Nasr during Ramadan. The sisters attended the call to prayer that marks sundown. They had just eaten a date and drunk some water before prayers and breaking fast. In post-revolutionary Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood represents the main organized opposition force and, judging by the first results in the general election, the future party in power. Having been severely oppressed during Mubarak’s regime, they have now stepped into the limelight. Women are present too, in the heart of the organization, and are active in the Brotherhood’s three pillars : preaching, social work and politics through the Brotherhood’s new Justice and Freedom party. Agents of the Egyptian revolution in their own right, they want to take part in the emergence of a modern Islamic society.”

Share this:

Brian Driscoll (b.1978, USA) is a recent graduate of the Documentary and Photojournalism Program at The International Center of Photography, where he was a recipient of the Director’s fellowship. Brian’s work has been exhibited at festivals and galleries nationally and internationally including PowerHouse arena and the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow. He was a participant at the Eddie Adams Workshop XXII, and in 2011 he was selected and featured as an “Emerging Talent” by Reportage by Getty Images. In 2012, Brian has been recognized with awards from the Magenta Foundation, New York Photo Festival Invitational, Social Documentary.net and the International Journal of Media and Information Policy. He is currently based in New York City.

About the Photograph:

“I took this photograph at the home of Nadia Shebl Ibrahim and Amm Ahmed Salama. They are the parents of Ayman Hegazy, 30, who was accused of burning the Science building near Tahrir Square, downtown Cairo on December 19, 2011. Ayman was abducted by the Supreme council of Armed Forces, (SCAF) while asleep in his bed at home on December 23, 2011. He is currently detained inside Tora security prison in Maadi, Cairo. His parents and brother await his judgment day, then a trial will be set. Some victims have remained in detention for up to a year. According to human rights groups, it is not clear how many people are behind bars in Egypt for political views and/ or actions. SCAF is using military trials as a means to restrain dissent and create a climate of fear in Egypt.”

Share this:

Monique Jaques (b. 1985, USA) is a photojournalist based in Istanbul. She has spent the past three years focused on documenting issues in the Middle East, Afghanistan and India. After graduating from New York University’s Photography and Imaging program she traveled extensively through the region and landed in Turkey. Since then she has photographed the revolution in Egypt, conflict in Libya, and in Afghanistan. In 2010 she was featured in the Ian Parry Scholarship show and received an Honorable Mention for the 2008 New York Photo Awards. More recently, she was accepted to the Eddie Adams Workshop in 2011. Her work has been published by The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian, and CNN among others. Monique is represented by Corbis Images.

About the Photograph:

“Raise your head high, you are a free Egyptian!” This woman and many others called out in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. For the first time in their lives women in Egypt were free to shout, chant, and sing in protests against President Hosni Mubarak. I went to Egypt to see how the women were contributing to an event that seemed to only feature men. Many women came to Tahrir Square independently, but most were bussed in from around Cairo where they were penned in by a ring of men holding hands to protect them. In this safe zone they were able exercise the freedoms of speech they had never had, and in a unique moment Egyptian women gathered together with heads held high and began not only a political revolution.”

Share this:

Eric Michael Johnson (b. 1972, USA) is a recent graduate of the International Center of Photography school of Documentary Photography and Photojournalism Program 2010 where he was recipient of The New York Times Company Foundation Scholarship. In 2010, Eric was a winner of the PDN Pix Digital Imaging Contest in the Multimedia category for his work “Bellevue” on New York City’s largest homeless shelter. Eric is currently a freelance photographer/ filmmaker based between New York and Mexico City. His work is focused on documenting recurring social and political issue and has been published by the United Nations, The New York Times, Mother Jones, among others. His first documentary film was short-listed for an Academy Award Nomination in the Documentary Shorts category.

About the Photograph:

“The photograph is a simple portrait, but an important one in the context of the Egyptian revolution. It was taken on February 12, 2011 in Tahrir Square, Cairo, one day after President Hosni Mubarak stepped down. Documenting the revolution was a very difficult task. Nobody knew what was going to happen next. Just a few days prior, Mubarak had given a televised speech announcing he would not step down. One moment you were allowed to photograph the military and the next you couldn’t without being detained. In this picture, the man on the left was extending his appreciation to a member of the military for supporting the people, allowing them to protest peacefully. What left the most lasting impression on me, and what in my opinion is different from the other similar uprisings in the world, is the relationship the people of Egypt have with their military. I witnessed that relationship displayed on a grand scale with crowds surrounding tanks and cheering, but this quiet moment between two men got my attention.”

Share this:

Jason Larkin (b. 1979, London, England) moved from filming documentaries to documentary photography three years ago after completing his MA in Photojournalism at the University of Westminster. Soon after this he moved to Cairo to work on large documentary projects in Egypt as well as editorial commissions, which include the Guardian Weekend Magazine, Monocle, Financial Times Magazine, National Saturday Review, Stern, and the New York Times. He’s recently been selected for the Magenta Flash Forward, and his ‘Past Perfect’ series was exhibited at the Brighton Photo Festival. He is now based in Johannesburg and a photographer with Panos Pictures in London.

About the Photograph:

“This is an image I took during one of the first features I produced after arriving in Cairo two years ago. I’d just finished my MA in photojournalism and had started to do some stringing for the Associated Press when I proposed a story on child labor in the Helwan brick kilns, south of Cairo. Amazingly, getting access wasn’t too hard as the rich owners seemed keen to show off their booming businesses, but the managers in charge of the illegal child workers, some as young as 10 years old, made life hard. This is a view from the top of one of the kilns and it instantly reminded me of L. S. Lowry’s paintings of the industrial districts of Northern England from the 1920’s. There are over 200 kilns in this area and nearly all of them illegally employee children to carry bricks in and out of the kilns for about eight hours a day.“

Share this:

Photojournalist Carsten Snejbjerg (b. 1966, Denmark) became interested in photography during his 3,400 km bike trip through China and Vietnam in 1997 and in 2000 he entered the Danish School of Journalism. He has won several awards including the 2008 first prize POYI Issue Reporting Story, second prize in Best of Photojournalism and several awards in the Danish Picture of the Year. He works as a freelancer for various magazines, newspapers and agencies worldwide. His images have appeared in Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Marie Claire, Der Spiegel, Stern, GQ , Time and the Smithsonian magazine. He lives in Copenhagen with his family.

About the Photograph:

“This picture shows some of the wealthier men relaxing in front of a café in the Manshiet Nasser neigborhood of Cairo I spend two weeks there trying to capture the feeling of daily life. The men and young boys of Manshiet Nasser collect more than a third of the 10,000 tons of daily garbage produced in Cairo. The Zabbaleen community of trash collectors recycles 80-85% of the garbage they collect. Three hundred fifty thousand people live and work there. The Zabbaleen migrated from rural Egypt in the 1950s during a time of drought. They were Coptic Christian pig farmers who began collecting garbage to feed their animals. The infant mortality rate is around 12 percent, twice as high as rest of Egypt. An extremely high percentage of the children suffer from respiratory illnesses, diarrhea, and infectious diseases. Forty-nine percent of the inhabitants have intestinal parasites.”

Share this:

Photojournalist Matt Moyer has worked on assignment for publications such The New York Times, The Guardian and People among others. He began his career with The Citizen, a small daily newspaper in Auburn, NY. He later lived in Cairo for three years learning Arabic and worked on a project about child laborers. These photographs received multiple awards in the PiOY competition. Moyer returned to the Middle East in April 2003, entering Iraq just after Baghdad fell to US troops. He spent four months working in Iraq and received his first assignment for National Geographic magazine in October 2003 to photograph the Shia of Iraq. He recently finished working on another project funded by National Geographic, looking at the private military industry and the guns for hire that make up the industry’s foot soldiers. Moyer is represented by Getty Images.

About the Photograph:

“I had been photographing an area of Cairo that was host to a number of pottery factories. They weren’t actually factories but rather mud hovels where workers made clay pots. I had spent months gaining access and befriending the workers. Child labor was rampant but many of the children working at the site were related to the men working in the factories. These families had no other choice but to have their children work at the site. If the children didn’t work, earning valuable income, then there would not be enough money to put food on the family’s table. One afternoon I was shooting and saw this little girl bathed in the late afternoon sun. At first she just stared at me but then she slowly looked off camera with eyes full of sadness.”

Share this:

Occasionally Verve Photo will feature the work of “old time” photographers. Such is the case with Denis Dailleux (b. 1958, France) who makes his home in Cairo. His images appear calm and are noted for their delicacy and grace. There is a melancholic quality to Dailleux’s work that comes from his relationship with the people in his photographs. I’ve been told by other photographers that Cairo is a challenging place to photograph but in Dailleux’s work one can sense a tenderness. He was awarded the Fujifilm Award in 2001, Festival Terre d’images Biarritz in 2000 and the World Press Photo Award in 2000. His work has been exhibited widely and he has published two books about Egypt. Denis is represented by Agence Vu.

About the Photograph:

Denis was reticent to comment on his images. His site describes this project as follows: “Between Denis Dailleux and Cairo there is a true love story. He has a fascination for this place, its mood, its magical lights and an unspeakable tenderness for its inhabitants. Denis has patiently constructed a unique portrait of Cairo with which he has a loving relationship. An absolute alternative to all the clichés, cultural and touristic, which clutter our thoughts.”

Share this:

About...

Photographer and photo editor Geoffrey Hiller has created Verve Photo to feature photographs and interviews by the finest contemporary image makers today. Verve Photo is a reminder of the power of the still image. Verve Photo will also point you to new photo agencies, publications, and inspiring multimedia projects.